Rat repair.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by DD1

How are you planning on replacing the kick panel (I know you mentioned it a couple posts ago) with the A pillar in place? I had to remove the A pillar or drop my floor - of course, I replaced the entire floor pan and had not permanently attached it as yet, so it was kinda easy. I spent (wasted) many hours trying to figure out how to get it in there before that.

I have absolutely no idea! Just gonna see if its possible....

If you haven't seen this thread yet you ought to go have a look!
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=705214

[swamp rat]

So I suppose I already know the safe bet answer but wanted some opinions, I sprayed down my battery tray with Super Clean and scrubbed it with a brush, do you think that is enough to rid the tray of any residual battery acid, or should I follow up with a bath in baking soda before I put it in my media blast cabinet?


So the weather forecasters were saying we were going to be in for a pretty big storm, it rained for 3 days and got a little windy but after all the prep for the "big one" it ended up being for nothing, oh well, the house is well stocked, gutters are clean again.. 😎

Well back to work tomorrow, still have about 5 more weeks of twice weekly PT. I truly got a taste for what retirement would be like, I can almost taste the freedom.

[Hewfil1]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

So I suppose I already know the safe bet answer but wanted some opinions, I sprayed down my battery tray with Super Clean and scrubbed it with a brush, do you think that is enough to rid the tray of any residual battery acid, or should I follow up with a bath in baking soda before I put it in my media blast cabinet?

If you're worried about it, do the baking soda just in case.

[swamp rat]

The last 4 days have been rain city, coupled with the body shock of going back to work and basically being trashed for a few days no work done to the truck.

After 4 days back at work I was able to swing a vacation day today LOL! all morning and afternoon no rain in the forecast so I couldn't pass it up.

I cut out more of the floor enough to determine the cab support is really solid so I wire brushed it and put a coat of Por 15 on it, will do a second coat tomorrow. I know the floor has some pitting but I cant ice pick thru any of it so i'm electing to leave it, i'll scrape each pit thoroughly then cover with Por 15

I found a small thin spot in the lower A pillar, about the size of my little fingernail, so I can reuse the original after I repair the small area.

I cut and fitted the inner rocker section into place and located it with a couple screws, then did the same with the inner kick panel, I can get ether of these between the floor support and A pillar but I cannot figure out a way to squeeze the two of them in at the same time, I have one more idea to investigate tomorrow, it would involve slightly bending the forward flange leg of the cab support forward then bending it back after the inner rocker and kick panel is in place, the only other option I can think of is the usual lower A pillar removal.

Went and bought some 16 gauge sheet and started fabbing some 90 degree angles to start rebuilding the firewall, I really wish I had a real breakform so I could do angles closer together, looks like i'll have to weld one angle leg to another to duplicate the firewall flange lip, more time, more heat.....

[swamp rat]

I got the angles welded to the firewall, but before I did that I decided to apply a second coat of POR 15 to the inside of the cab support, that we a mistake that I didn't realize until about half way done with the spot welds, sigh, without gloves on..... Anybody knot what takes POR 15 off of skin? I don't know how that stuff jumped out of that cab support.

I succeeded in finding a way to get the inner kick panel and inner rocker both in place without having to remove the Lowe A pillar, tight squeeze.

I got the replacement floor panel off the shelf and promptly started to trim it down, too far in fact as I cut the bend transition for the firewall clean off...... Well nice day for a drive to Olympia for a new one, my dog thanked me for taking him for a ride. Got home and got the new one roughed.

So I'm dwelling on going ahead and doing a larger area of the floor anyway to get rid of the worse of the pitting.

[swamp rat]

Pic's

[swamp rat]

Todays carnage, cut out a good portion of the floor, cleaned up the edges and spot weld flashing ect, then roughed the repair panel down a bit more, got some locator screws and the cab mount bolt in. Time for some Sunday night Football, Go Hawks!

[DD1]

Nice progress. I am impressed you got the kick panel in. I would suggest trying gasoline to remove the POR15 if you have not gotten it out as yet.

[First c10]

Hey Mike. Looking good. How are you feeling? Back to work?

[7dee2]

Nice work getting that inner rocker in there!

[swamp rat]

Yet again, 3 posts and no email notification!

Well the POR-15 is long worn off with daily showers LOL! Yes i have been working, today marks 2 weeks back on the mill, shoulder is still a bit sore but making ground, next week is my last PT sessions (2) I'll kinda be glad to stop going as it cuts into my truck time.

Not much done since the last pic, as i have only had a couple hours to spare this week to work on the truck, just slowly trimming the floor panel out, i have a tendancy to accidentally cut too much so slow and steady... I almost called in sick cause it was a barn burner of a day today, i have plenty of time to use as i just passed my 28 year date with this company, plenty of sick leave and vacation time under the belt, but i always have a tendency to use it too much in the fall and winter, then scrape the barrel in the spring and fall, gotta stop doing that..

[mcbassin]

Nice progress on the rust repair.

[swamp rat]

From my last post until today not a lot done just the final trimming hole prep and some weldable primer on some edges, one thing I have come to the conclusion I will NEVER buy SEM weldable primer again, this stuff spits and sputters and I think even promoted blow outs in the welds, I had some copper looking stuff before and it worked great, don't recall what it was.....

It rained, rained and dumped some more most all day (and the better part of the last 1.5 weeks) so I ran the 220V extension cord out the garage window into the car cover then covered the exposed 2' with a tarp to keep the water off of it. Standing on a kinda not too dry sheet of plywood while welding.. Worked on her from about 10am till 6:30pm.

I will admit I averted a disaster today, while cleaning up I coiled the live extension cord and balanced it on the pickup bed while getting ready to feed it back thru the car cover wall and into the garage window, when I opened the window from the outside the coiled part of the cord fell into a puddle of water below, the corner of female plug end box was in the puddle about 1/2" deep, but thankfully no sparks as I walked off to flip the breaker, did I mention I was also standing in the puddle???? I think in the future I best pull my head out and flip the breaker off when I setup from now on..

Here's todays carnage:

First 2 pic's are about 3/4 welded, the last is done less grinding and searching for spots I missed, the inner kick is tacked in about 5 places

[Vic1947]

Looks good, Mike. Grinding... my least favorite part, but the end result is worth it! I've never used welding primer, just the spray on spatter inhibitor. Seems like from what you've experienced, the downside outweighs the upside. Keep those pictures coming. Progress is great despite the rain. Rick's getting soaked up in Seabeck also. Just that time of year in the great Northwest.

[Hewfil1]

Progress lookin' real good!

[DD1]

Looks great, Mike! Gotta be careful out there. You might want to see if you can change your circuit breaker for the 220v line to a GFCI breaker if you are going to keep on working in the rain.

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Vic1947

Looks good, Mike. Grinding... my least favorite part, but the end result is worth it! I've never used welding primer, just the spray on spatter inhibitor. Seems like from what you've experienced, the downside outweighs the upside. Keep those pictures coming. Progress is great despite the rain. Rick's getting soaked up in Seabeck also. Just that time of year in the great Northwest.

Splatter inhibitor?? Never heard of it!! Now I have to try all my grinder options again to find the best.

So I didn't sleep well last night, back in the chair at about 530am, wake again at 8 and the sun is burning bright!

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by Hewfil1

Progress lookin' real good!

Thanks!

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by DD1

Looks great, Mike! Gotta be careful out there. You might want to see if you can change your circuit breaker for the 220v line to a GFCI breaker if you are going to keep on working in the rain.

Humm, do these dinosaurs have a GFCI built in??

[swamp rat]

Heres the working end of the cord that found the puddle, it was face down but just like this but there were about 4 more coils which held the one end up at an angle... Still wondering how the water never made contact with the plug ends, guessing friction.

[Vic1947]

Water's actually not a very good electrical conductor when it's fresh (as in rainwater). Add a little salt, however, and the properties change dramatically. That said, it's still not a good idea to drop a toaster in the bathwater.

[swamp rat]

Spent today with grinder and dotco in hand, then searched around for places I missed, and had to fill in some holes from the splatter problem I had, from 10am to 6pm, took forever! I didn't get the pic's of the results, and I still have to finish up the kicker and firewall flanges before I move on to the outer rocker.

So about dark and I was close to wrapping up, heard a faint meow, I made the mistake of answering the call not knowing where it came from, next thing I know I finished a spot weld and there was a cat trying to climb in my lap, there were 2 of them actually, one super friendly the other I little more cautious, hopefully the trusting one will learn to not be so trusting with strangers as there are some folks or dogs that would have a problem with there presence.

[swamp rat]

Got a question for everyone, when your welding and grinding are you using a paper air filter? I know Vic has a resperator, i know better than to breath the fumes and hold my breath a lot when welding but what about grinding? Definitely coughing up some black crap.

[rgunlock]

whenever I knew I was going to be welding or grinding for a while, I used the paper masks. If you don't, once you blow your nose you will know that you should have BTW, the floor repairs look like they are turning out real well.

[Vic1947]

Before I was forced to go to a full face respirator due to the eye thingy, these are what I used. (My wife also likes to use them when chopping up jalapeno's.)
They seal around your face a lot better than the cheap ones, plus they have a one way valve that directs the air out of a dedicated passage rather than thru the entire mask surface. I buy them by the box off eBay.